A St III U. AS IK \li:\V Ol" TIM I'.. 417 



oi our mental (lelusi(in>. li is therefore interesting^ to sec how 

 the revived Seliohistieisni i>t tlie last tew decades has met these 

 new tendencies. Kant, Bradley and P)ert^son nia\ l>e taken as 

 names that represent three streams of thousj^ht, which tend t(^ 

 shake the empirical view thai time counts for someihino in the 

 realm oi reality. 



Most of the Kantians will no: adniil that iMnniaiuiel Kant 

 treats tiiue as a mental ilelusion. But what is it in his system? 

 When he tells us that it is em])iricall\- real and transcendentally 

 ideal, he does not describe what we mean ])y a real thin^'. What 

 we think of. in ap})rehending time. is. lie tells us. (|ualities of 

 an absolute time which does not exist. Time is just the form 

 of our internal ])ercei)tii;n. which is iji\en us (/ priori, and which 

 therefore does not necc^sarilx- arise from our bein';^' in touch 

 with reality. 



Against this the modern Scholastics have advanced two 

 j)ositions. which appear to safeguard the reality of time, better 

 than Kant's hypotheses, if we are prepared to admit that Kant 

 leaves anythin<>' to guard. 



First, the data of time arise from experience, and are not 

 given a priori. Cardinal Mercier. wh(^ was the distinguished 

 leader of the Neo-Scholastics of Louvain forty years before his 

 name became famous as the brave Belgian prelate, holds that 

 Kant's objections only ap])ly to ideal and imaginar\- time, 

 i.e., to notions that we may form of a ]x.ssibly unlimited time or 

 of a time limited only b}' the efforts of our imagination. It does 

 not apply to what we may call physical time. 



In fact, he says : 



Supprimez par la ponsee tons 'es mnvcments qui dans la realite 

 forment le oours des evenements. de ciuip le temps reel' s'evanouit, niai.s 

 le temps ideal restc avcc le snbstrat c|nc liii prete rimagination. En 

 resume, rien ne demande que les notions d'espace et de temps soient 

 anterieurs a I'experiencc ; I'analyse montre au cnntraire que I'observatinn 

 oxterieure ct le sens intime en sont la source I 



On the other hand, time has its root in the real world. For 

 j)ure duratioti. which is a real consequence of real movements, 

 is the foundation of that measurement which we call time. Pure 

 duration is certainly not time, but it is something real which, 

 when measured, gives us time. Certain conditions are required 

 in order that this measurement may be ])ossible; there must be 

 a measuring mind, and the object to be measured mu.st be nor- 

 mally presented. If any of these fail the meastirement fails, 

 not for want of a reality, but for Vvant of the normal conditions 

 in which it can be gauged. Is this not true of every real measure- 

 ment? "Yet measurement, though as such it is an act of the 

 mind, is none the less objectively determined." So says another 

 recent writer* among Scholastics. 



Bradley strikes at the reality of time through a destructive 

 criticism of causality. But he also attempts to deal directly with 

 time through duration. His argmnent is " based on a fallacy. 



* Leslie J. Walker, S.J.. " Tlieories of Knuw Icdoe," p. 249. 



